1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to games machines that are provided with the mechanical counters required by regulations under the law and that furthermore comprise an electronic payment mechanism making it possible to play with electronic payment means such as a chip card or smart card. Such machines enable the use of modern payment means with the advantages of speed and security related thereto while at the same time remaining in conformity with the legislation on gaming machines which is particularly stringent and enforced by inspection.
The present invention can be applied to games machines using token-operated payment mechanisms and/or electronic payment mechanisms.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is the common practice, especially in casinos that have permission for this, to use games machines called gaming machines that enable possible winnings, which may be huge, to be made by placing wagers with coins and by setting off the machine through action on a lever that activates a randomly operating selection mechanism.
The use of cash is not practical as it necessitates the handling of large volumes of coins for relatively small sums, tends to develop the use of counterfeit money, facilitates the theft of these coins, and above all slows down the speed with which players may stake their money and hence reduces the volume of profit obtained by the owner of the machine.
To overcome these drawbacks, the present Applicant, in a European patent application No. 93 402560.2 filed on 18 Oct., 1993 under the title Machine de jeux a monnayeur electronique ("Games Machine With Electronic Payment Mechanism"), has described and claimed a device enabling the adaption to an ordinary gaming machine firstly of a payment mechanism working with secured electronic tokens that enable the replacement of the coins and, secondly, an electronic payment mechanism using a chip card of the type commonly used in telephone booths or bank cash dispensers. The machines thus equipped have a combined mode of operation since they can work with either tokens or chip cards. Such a device works well but has the drawback, if used as such, of disturbing the operation of a number of mechanical counters used, by virtue of the regulations, in the machine, thus making it contravene legislation in force in France and in some other countries.
Indeed, the possibilities of fraudulent behavior, to the detriment of both the player and the tax collector, which were widely availed of in the past by the criminal organizations that controlled this form of business, have led legislators in most countries to require the presence and use in these machines of a number of mechanical counters which, in principle, are impossible to defraud and totalize a large number of the parameters used during the working of the machine. Any attempt to falsify the operation of these counters is of course strictly prohibited.
These counters are called:
"TOTAL IN" (TI): counter of total inputs, totalizes the tokens that are physically put into the machine and, in certain machines, the credits staked;
"TOTAL OUT" (TO): counter of total outputs, totalizes the tokens that are physically put out of the machine and, in certain machines, the credits staked;
"CASH BOX" (CB): counter of receipts, totalizes the tokens sent to the receipts recording cash box or till;
"JACKPOT" (JK): counter of winnings, totalizes the so-called "jackpot" winnings which are paid by hand in the form of payment vouchers (BP);
"CANCEL CREDIT" (CC): totalizes the payments in the form of payment vouchers (BP), the totals of small winnings that exceed the limit of payment by the gaming machine;
"GAME PLAYED" (GP): counter of games, totalizes the number of games played.
It must be noted that, in France, the "CANCEL CREDIT" and "JACKPOT" counters are merged to form a single "JACKPOT" counter. This entails a number of additional difficulties for the use of a card-validation system as shall be shown hereinafter in this document.
These counters are incremented during the working of the gaming machine as described hereinafter. The movement of the coins in the machine is described schematically in FIG. 1.
When the operation of the gaming machine is started, the operator fills its feeder box 106 with a sufficient number of tokens enabling it to pay out winnings properly to customers for the day. For entry into the accounting system, these tokens are taken out of the accounts and their input into the feeder box is registered in the form of an advance voucher (AV) 105.
When a player makes the machine work by putting a coin into the payment mechanism, the TOTAL IN (TI) counter 101 is incremented by one unit. The coin thus inserted then goes by one of the following paths, under the control of the deflector 102:
if the feeder box is full, the token falls into the receipts till and the CASH BOX (CB) counter is incremented by one unit;
if the feeder box is not full, the token falls into it and increases the mass of tokens that may be redistributed to the customer in the event of winnings.
The player may, however, may make wagers with sums contained in a counter 103 called "CREDIT" when it is not at zero. This counter, which is not included among the mechanical counters, enables the winnings to be totalized so that they are not distributed immediately. (For this purpose, the parameters will have been entered into the machine, this operation being known to those skilled in the art).
In certain types of machines, when the player thus stakes a CREDIT token, the TOTAL IN (TI) counter is incremented by one unit to account for the entry of this virtual token, and the TOTAL OUT (TO) counter is also incremented by one unit to re-establish the account of the real tokens that have physically entered the machine. In any case, the fact of adding credits does not affect the TOTAL IN and TOTAL OUT counters. This is necessary to keep the exact account of the tokens physically present in the feeder box.
The wager having thus been placed, when the customer starts a game, the GAME PLAYED (GP) counter is incremented by one unit.
If the game is lost, nothing happens.
If the game is won, and brings in variable winnings for the player, then the CREDIT counter is incremented by the number of units corresponding to the winnings obtained, of course if the machine should be configured in credit mode. Otherwise the tokens fall into the feeder box.
The player having thus won may decide to continue to play. He or she then starts the game again on the basis of the contents of the CREDIT counter which is decremented, and so on and so forth.
When the player decides to take his winnings, he presses a button called the CASH OUT BUTTON and the machine then pays out the winnings in two possible ways, depending on the amount of these winnings:
if the total of the winnings does not exceed the limit allowed for automatic distribution, which depends essentially on the capacity of the feeder box and the parameters set for the gaming machine, the tokens involved fall from said feeder box into a receptacle from which the player can recover them. During this operation, the TOTAL OUT (TO) counter is incremented by the number of tokens paid out;
if the total of the winnings exceeds the set distribution limit, the machine gets locked and triggers the transmission of a signal to the games room staff. A staff member then goes and draws up a payment voucher (BP) that the customer can use to get his or winnings paid at the cash desk, and resets the CREDIT counter on zero by using a key known as a CANCEL KEY. This operation leads to the CANCEL CREDIT (CC) counter being incremented by the number of tokens payed.
When a player wins the jackpot, the machine stops immediately. The amount of this jackpot is far beyond the the automatic redistribution limit of the feeder box, and the signal to the staff member is sent in this case too. A staff member then, in the same way as above, draws up a payment voucher (BP), gives it to the customer, and then resets the CREDIT counter on zero by using the CANCEL KEY. The JACKPOT counter (JK) is then automatically incremented by the number of tokens paid, divided by 10. This division corresponds to the fact that the jackpot is always a multiple of 10, making it possible to have a counter that is smaller than necessary to record the exact sum corresponding to the jackpot.
A French regulation stipulates that the contents of the JACKPOT counter should be compared with the payments actually made on the basis of the payment vouchers BP drawn up by the staff. There is always a difference corresponding to winnings not claimed by customers for different reasons. This difference has to be given to charity. This point raises a problem in France, as shall be seen further below, in enabling the use of card validation systems owing to the merger of the JACKPOT and CANCEL CREDIT counters referred to further above.
In a gaming machine, the main check is on the number of tokens contained in the feeder box. The variation Vt of this number is computed by means of the following formula: EQU Vt=TI-CB-TO+BA (1)
The income PG from the machine is itself computed by means of the formula: EQU PG=TI-TO-BP(JK, CC)=CB-BA-BP(JK, CC) (2)
As explained further above, the variation of the contents of the feeder box is an essential element for checking the operation of the gaming machine. The use of a card-operated payment mechanism in a machine that has a token-operated payment mechanism and is capable of combined operation should not in any way disturb the working of the counters TI and TO which play a role in the computation of this variation. This therefore in principle rules out any mixing between the inputs of virtual tokens (electronic pulses) from the card-operated payment mechanisms and the inputs of real tokens from the token-operated payment mechanism, as well as the use of the feeder box control signals to pay out winnings in the card.
The token-operated payment mechanisms are also called COMPARITORS.